Sometimes
by Blaze6
Summary: He should be sleeping. J/S


TITLE: Sometimes  
  
AUTHOR: Blaze  
  
SUMMARY: He should be sleeping. J/S.  
  
RATING/SPOILERS: PG and none  
  
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. But I wish I did, because then I'd be eighty gazillion times cooler by association. ; )  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Enjoy. : )  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Sometimes, in the early morning when he should be sleeping, he lets his mind wander down crowded streets and secluded alleys, where street vendors sell thoughts and memories for next to nothing and buying one thought will lead to the next vendor and the next and the next.  
  
He thinks about his analogy and decides that it is no wonder he cannot sleep, with merchants bartering for his musings on the cobblestone streets of his mind. Cobblestone? That's a new one. If the vendor image strikes him, it is usually on the streets of New York, on the modern geometrically perfect sidewalks, not in a world too far away in either distance or time.  
  
He has not had the vendor image in weeks.  
  
A psychologist might make the leap that he is searching to place value on his thoughts and actions, that the representation of bartering is his mind trying to decide how much he had to focus on each thought, that the streets being too far away is an attempt at reconciling with his past.  
  
Reconciling with the present was reconciling with the past. Question now: Am I reconciling anything?  
  
Sometimes he looks at her and thinks it was all a big mistake. Wonders what might have been, wonders what Marie has told the girls, wonders if they will hate him later the way he's seen children hate the adulterous parent. Wonders if maybe he should tell her to go, or if he never should've given in all those nights ago. Wonders who was the bigger mistake, Sam or Marie. Wonders if his marriage and affair were mistakes at all.  
  
And if they were mistakes, who was to blame?  
  
I am, he thinks. Marie didn't force me to have an affair. Didn't force her to marry me, either. And we had good times, great times, sublime times. We could have them again if I try a little harder to repair the damage I've done. It would be good to go home and see my girls grow up not knowing what I did and not hating me for it. But I'd have to leave her, and I don't think I can do that.  
  
Not see her at work--we'd have to not work together, that's how this all started--not talk to her, not run cases with her. Not eat the best Chinese in the city with plastic forks straight out of the carton, careful not to get chow mein on a witness statement or their suits, reading the fortunes as she ate both fortune cookies and trying to determine a time when the fortune had come true.  
  
One of hers, after a case, had read "You will get what you want through your charm and personality", and he had raised an eyebrow as she nodded, and with a look on her face he could only ever attribute to Sam, had leaned in and stolen the words from his lips.  
  
Sometimes, he thinks he loves her. The thought makes his heart pound, at work, while he's driving, while he's trying to sleep but is thinking instead. It scares him, thinking he might love her. Afraid of what it will mean if he does. Afraid of what he will have to do and what it will do to him and his family if he does. Afraid for her, too. Afraid of what she'll think if he tells her. Afraid of what she'll do if he really does love her. Afraid of what he'll do to their relationship if he does.  
  
Afraid that she's in love with him.  
  
He cannot think for a few seconds. What if she is? What if she's not? It is as if she thought she was pregnant, but there is no test for love. Nothing he could do to find out, no chemical reaction. He remembers the long silence during those horrendous five minutes, staring across at Marie, hoping that maybe it would be positive, trying to figure out what to do if it wasn't. He wishes he could have a love test, find out for sure. But he doesn't know if he'd like it to be positive or not.  
  
Does love mean expectations? If it does, and she loves him, does she want him to leave Marie for good? And if she doesn't love him, then is she using him? Or is he using her? Are they using each other?  
  
He doesn't think he's using her. He'd like to think he'd notice if she was using him. But he doesn't know. He thinks maybe he's in denial about a lot of things. He thinks he's aware of a lot of things too.  
  
Aware that the vendors are shutting down for the night, packing away some of their goods, aware that the alleys are fading into the streets and the streets are blending into darkness and then--  
  
Nothing. 


End file.
